A Series of Unfortunate Events Part 1

   I woke up early one morning (because the bathroom beckons me) and after I was back in bed, I was unable to go back to sleep.  I had a thought come in to my head, "Why don't you check your balance on your credit card?" My phone was on my nightstand, and I picked it up with that thought in mind.  A couple of months ago we decided to pay all our monthly bills plus charge the gas for our cars on our credit card and earn cash back, such as it is.  We then pay it off by the 28th, the prescribed day of the month before it begins to accrue interest for the credit union.  So far, so good. Until today.  I sat up with alarm--$1652.00 to Zleep Inn somewhere in Europe? I began to nudge Wally, still soundly sleeping beside me (I know, kind of  mean) and asked him if he knew anything about this. No of course not.  What was I talking about?  As the daylight began to fill our room, I kept checking the clock to see if our credit union was open.  I drove over and found out that yes, we had been a victim of credit card scam.  Everything was quickly remedied with the exception that we no longer had a working card until our new one came in the mail.  The woman who helped me said we could withdraw cash or try to write checks and see if they worked if we needed money. That day we discovered it's not convenient to buy gas with cash but it's doable.
     That evening, there was an incredible summer storm that drove us into the house from the deck,and we watched with awe the rain coming down in unprecedented walls of water, creating an inch deep lake on our covered deck.  One clap of thunder coincided with a flash of lighting and we all jumped nervously but our anxiety turned into laughter as we saw how affected we all were. I hoped for our garden plants to survive the heavy and sudden rain continuing longer that we anticipated.
     A couple of days later, crawling back in the bed again, this time late at night, Wally commented he thought he could smell something kind of funky in our house, and I ought to check my sewing room (down in the basement) the next morning and see if I could detect a problem.  This I did, and yes, there was a problem.  Water had also made a lake of our driveway during that incredible storm, and some of it breached the window well leading down to my sewing room.  Half of the carpet and pad were wet, and other various and assorted areas and items had been absorbing and mutating the water into strange biological concoctions for three days since the rain. I felt a bit overwhelmed, to say the least, and Wally and I began moving things out of the room, unscrewing and unbolting all the modular shelving that held fabric and such. We sorted dry vs. wet and made piles and filled garbage bags with things needing washing and things ruined and now destined for the landfill.  We jammed up the workroom and storage room with the disassembled shelving in order to clear off the carpet for water extraction.  I called my carpet guy and he came later that afternoon and because there was cement floor beneath the carpet and pad, it did not need lifting, only the (stinky) water needed to be removed. Yay! Also, he had no problem taking my check, although I explained it may not clear. Nice guy.  Three days later when it was dry he came back and collected his fans and cleaned all the carpets, which was somewhat a bad decision on my part as we had company coming for the weekend to celebrate June birthdays. Ah well. 
    Meanwhile, we were waiting for Jonah.  Sarah and Jessie were expecting a baby and we thought he would come early, maybe a week.  Turns out he was 2 weeks late, coming in just under the wire for his mother's eligibility to have him at the birthing center, which she had prepped and planned for the whole pregnancy.  Otherwise she would have gone to the hospital, so good job, baby. During that last week Wally and I had our 40th wedding anniversary and had a trip planned that we eventually postponed.  The little girls came and spent a few days with us during the week as Sarah was fighting for her sanity, a process only known by women who have carried a baby post-term, It was fun for us to have the girls anyway, except for one morning...
    I woke up to the sound of a little person whispering "Grandma, I'm ready for something to eat."  It was not an unreasonable request, or even unexpected.  I took a moment to get dressed and comb my hair, etc. when I noticed an overwhelming desire to scratch the dickens out of my legs.  I couldn't do it enough, and after a few minutes, I realized there was a problem.  I looked down and thought I had 85 mosquito bites over my upper legs, and they were welting up like crazy.  I then noticed my backside was itching, too, and I wondered what was happening to me.  Hives. I have never had hives before until that moment and it was wild.  I spent the next few days warding off new itching spells and welts on different areas of my body, or else sleeping though a drug induced coma from taking Benadryl.  Wally took care of the kids most of the time, and I just passed through the hours by timing when I could take my next fix. I discovered a blend of essential oils that reduced and cooled the itching, allowing me to have other thoughts in my head besides my incredible itching experience. (2 drops Myrrh, 2 drops Lavender, 4 drops carrier oil.)